Assassin’s Creed 3: ‘We Don’t Want The Brand To Go Fantasy’ – Ubisoft

Have you wondered by Ubisoft decided to opt for the American Revolution setting for Assassin’s Creed 3? Well, now you will get their reasoning and why they think it might inspire gamers to learn more about the period.

Assassin’s Creed 3 IP Development Director Tommy François has revealed why Ubisoft chose the American Revolution as the setting for Assassin’s Creed 3. Speaking at a special Assassin’s Creed 3 event in London, François said, “We picked the American Revolution because that hadn’t been done in games before. It’s particularly difficult to do for shooters.”

François also explained why Ubisoft is trying to keep the series rooted in historical reality.

“In our original vision, we had a weapon called the ‘chain blade’ [a retractable blade, attached to a chain, that fired out from Connor’s wrist] but we had to get rid of that because we realised that it was too fantasy and, as much as we play and exaggerate history in many instances, we do not want the brand to go fantasy. We want to stay true to its era and the period we play in. Instead we have something called a ‘rope dart’ which comes from Chinese history, so we know that it existed and makes more sense.”

The attention to detail goes as far as dispelling myths about American Indians, “We had one shot where Connor was scalping a character, but we found out through research that the Mohawks Indians didn’t scalp, so that was one feature we got rid of.”

François also suggested that gamers will learn a lot about history from playing Assassin’s Creed 3, from the real world events and the characters in the game,

“We have a lot of historical figures, about 80 per cent of our characters are historical. We’ve all seen George Washington on the one-dollar bill and we’re hoping to give him a more human approach, for people to see the more human side of George Washington.”

“With Assassin’s we hope to go into what you can’t see, to revisit these periods and give you a new take, a fresh take on all of these historical characters.”

With that being said, I am sure there are still going to be plenty of people that are going to be unsure about the series. Especially going into the American Revolution. But even so the only way we are going to be able to know how it is going to be reflected into the game. So, until the game releases we can speculate all we want, but we won’t know for sure. Either way, I am excited to see the changes.